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The Setting
The history of the the world is a sprawling tapestry, embroidered in blood, magic and gold, stretching from the furthest past to the current hour. The First Dawn Lyr : The truth is that the universe is a massive field of primal energy known as Lyr. Lyr means “core” and "root" in the Old Tongue. Lyr suffuses everything, manipulates everything and composes everything. It takes on countless forms, such as the physical composition of the world, the body of a creature, or the breath that gives it life and sentience. Lyr is the essence that maintains the order of the Cocoon, and Lyr is the swirling insanity—the Dream—that lies beyond it. : Time before Shape : In the beginning, there was only raw Lyr, an endless sea of pure chaos, infinite change, and formless potential. Here, there were no rules, boundaries and restrictions, only an eternal sea of impermanence we call the “Dream”. Within the Dream existed the Mother. We do not know if She predated existence, or if she were born from the Lyr, or She was somehow coterminous with it, but She was the first of all shaped things. Perhaps time itself was irreverent before the First Dawn, but for a time untold, the Mother drifted within the Dream, surrounded by nothing but swirling chaos. Let There be Shape! : : Weary of the madness that sorrounded Her, the Mother desired shelter from the endless tempest of formlessness. From this desire sprang shape and order. She willed the Grand Design, spinning the threads of fate and time with Her distaff to encase herself in a massive globe that chaos could not penetrate. Inside the globe, the mother wove dream into existence, where Lyr was made solid, given form and order. : After some time, the Mother pooled all her strength to break the globe into two, parting the skies and the seas, and the fragments fell up to the heavens and became the stars. She spun Lyr into fertile lands, where trees, mountains and various life forms arose. She wove blankets of verdant forests and plains, and satin expanses of oceans and cerulean skies. She wove the moon and the starlit darkness, appointing them to mark the passing of time as the night. : And on the heavens, She fashioned a globe of luminous light into a city of gold, Bran Vaal, that lighted up creation as the sun. Here, the Mother settled down to rest. This is the period that we came to know as the First Dawn. : The existence, however, could not run itself, and her world did not permit long lapses of attention. Hence, the Mother created the Rau'n to govern and maintain the Cocoon, leaving it in their charge. The Rau'n : The Mother loved her creation deeply. From pure lyr she formed several rau’n into existence, then gave each of them a name and a purpose—a sphere of influence and a position in a hierarchy that would govern the world. Every rau'n has a function and purpose in the Grand Design. The purpose defined the rau'n, and became its nature, so the rau'n would spend time maintaining the portion of the world over which it held dominance. Every piece and part of the Cocoon has an embodiment in a rau'n, however small or large. Not only objects have rau'n, but universal concepts as well. : The Mother took Eos, the Rau’n of Creation, as her consort and lover, and they gave birth to many god-children between them. Their eldest daughter, Aoide, was appointed to be the Overseer of Sorcery, the great art which the Mother worked to construct the world. The eldest son, Cerod, became the Master of Time, while their second daughter, Nimue, became the Keeper of Fate. : The world was ready for the genesis of the mortal races. The Dawn of Mortals : Thus far, no one truly knows why the Mother and the Ao created the mortal races to populate the world. Priests say that the answer lies within the Grand Design, while theologians speculate that it is because divine beings are empowered by mortal prayers. :Together with Eos, the Rau'n of Creation, the Mother shaped the first mortals into Her own image. The Inadri were born to become the first mortal kings of the Cocoon, supreme in strength and power, and blessed them with wings fashioned from Bran Vaal's undying light. Satisfied with Her creation, She appointed the Inadri to be the masters of all living creatures. :She urged Her three eldest Ao children to create mortal races of their own, and provided them with the forms that they may tinker to their liking. :Aoide imbued the first form with her own lyr. Thus the race of Sin'drael was born. She anointed them with the gift of mana, and through her tutelage, they became the first sorcerers. Yet, for all their passion and magical powers, they fell short against the might of the Inadri. They served the Inadri in politics and arcane matters. :Cerod instilled the second form with his own lyr. Thus the race of Vezhati was born. He anointed them with timeless ingenuity, and through his son Biruda's tutelage, they learned the science of clockworks and machina. Yet, for all their intelligence and superior technology, they fell short against the brilliance of the Inadri. They served the Inadri as engineers and craftsmen. :Nimue imbued the third form with her own lyr. Thus the the race of Tessit was born. She anointed them with the ability to access the loom of fate, and through the (Rau'n of Star)'s tutelage, they learned to read the stars and see the past, present, and the possibilities of the future. Yet, for all their wisdom and foresight, they fell short against the enlightenment of the Inadri. They served the Inadri as priests and advisors. Shackles and Pride : When they saw the works of the three Ao, the Inadri grew curious. Curiosity soon brimmed into envy, and the Inadri decided to create mortals of their own making. :Through Sorcery, they shaped forms into their own image, and instilled them with their own lyr. The result was a disaster. Their creatures were foolish, short-lived and weak. They were despised by the ancient races, and no Ao wished to claim them as children. :Thus the race of Humàk, "shackled" in the Old Tongue, which would be later known as Humans, was born. They served the Inadri as slaves, performing menial tasks for their mighty overlords. The Dream Stirs : Eventually, the creation drew the attention of the Unshaped, denizens of the Dream. Curiously they peered into the Cocoon, wondering what it was like to be part of the orderly world. They watched the mortals closely, marveling at the mysteries of life: to find joy in song and dance, to find bliss in romance, to find peace in order. The Unshaped grew envious of their ability to imagine and dream new things. : Soon, they pleaded with the Mother to weave them into the Grand Design. But the Mother refused, for the hemi-shell was small, and did not have room for the endless hordes of malleable reality. Angered and indignant, the Unshaped plotted to burn away all order and return the world to the formless purity of the time before shape. : For some time, however, the world enjoyed peace and harmony. The First Dawn was about to end. : The Sundered Morning Whispers across the Veil : Angered by the Mother’s rejection, the Unshaped sought of a way to sow disorder and weaken the Cocoon. They whispered to the rau’n from across the Veil, causing many of them to question their servitude and doubt the Mother’s leadership. Foremost among them is Aoide, Rau’n of Sorcery, and the eldest child of the Mother. : Her domain, Sorcery, was a powerful art. It was the very power Mother used to shape formless lyr and create life. Yet every spell by cast by mortals could create snags in the threads of fate and change the pattern of its tapestry, which was adversarial to the Grand Design. The Mother forbade its excessive use. This frustrated Aoide, and she grew to hate her younger sister, Nimue, who oversaw fate. : Aoide wanted to see a world free of predesigned flow of events. The whispers of the Unshaped suggested that she could create a world of her own—one that was not limited by the confines of fate, a world where her creativity will not be constrained by some divine design. : She conjured an illusion of such a world. : That moment was an epiphany for Aoide. A wave of longing struck her with the force of a blow. This, she realized, was what she had craved all her centuries. The Ao had never known despair, but it closed in on her now. Wondrous though the Cocoon might be, it was a small and restrictive place for one such as she. The skies and the borders of the hemi-shell tightened too, until they threatened to swallow her whole. : Her eyes never left the illusion. For such a thing, she would give anything. Aoide buried her head in her hands and struggled from screaming aloud. No, she corrected herself, for such a thing she would give everything. Suddenly as the thoughts of darkness and desolation came, a moment passed, chased from her mind by a bold plan: light after a despairing night, sun rising over the horizon, a second dawn. : Aoide slowly raised her eyes again to the chimera of her world. Why not? She thought rebelliously. : A Dark Dalliance : Aoide intended to construct her own world, yet Sorcery alone cannot maintain it. : *Aoide seduces Eos, Rau'n of Creation, conducting a dalliance secretly. Aoide gets pregnant. The Mother finds out and gets jealous and enraged, cursing Aoide's womb, that it would no longer produce rau'n, but monstrous things. *Aoide fled towards the borders of the Cocoon, and then into the Mild Dream, cursing the Mother and the Ao for each agonizing labor pain. *Aoide gave birth to several monstrous rau'n called the shedim. The strongest of them became the "Iblis". The body of the eldest Iblis became Sheol itself. *There, she gathered the shedim, and created an army to punish the Mother and the Ao. *Aoide, with Iblis as her generals, and the shedim attacked the Cocoon, killing several mortals. One of her iblis daughters, which looks like a crimson moon, became their transport vessel as it sailed towards Bran Vaal, the golden city of Ao. *Finally, the crimson moon collided with Bran Vaal, creating the "Scarlet Eclipse". Aoide's army breached into the holy city. Before, the sun did not cast shadows. When the shedim set foot into Bran Vaal, some parts started to blacken, and it began to cast shadows. *The battle between rau'n and the shedim seemed took several years. Aoide had slain many rau'n and Inadri kings, fatally wounding her siblings, her father and Galvanoth. The Mother herself took many injuries. In the end, Aoide's army was defeated, with the combined might of the Ao and the mortal races. *The Mother transported Sheol in a place called "Elsewhere", and locked Aoide and all her shedim in there, where they began to dream their vengeance. The Mother put the shedim in a sorcerous servitude. Mortals and rau'n alike can summon shedim to serve them. *The Mother becomes inactive in the affairs of the world. This marks the end of Sundered Morning. The Golden Zenith The Ashen Dusk The Blood Nadir The Forlorn Twilight The Second Dawn